Kirk Franklin may be known as a popular gospel music artist, but the choir director and musician is letting it be known that he is the product of a troubled past.

Franklin, 43, recently gave his fans some insight into his hard upbringing.

"I was adopted by a 64-year-old lady and we were raised in really difficult times. You know, standing in line to get the block cheese, getting the tough jeans," Franklin revealed on Shade 45's radio show "Sway In The Morning." "I had a sister that had a real bad drug problem. [She] spent over a decade in prison- prostitution. So, we lived that life and it was a difficult life."

The gospel musician said he developed his Christian faith further when one of his close friends was killed as a young teenager.

"I was 15 when my dude got killed and when he got killed is when I got closer to faith," Franklin revealed to host Sway Calloway. "That's when I really just developed my own relationship with the Lord."

Franklin did not shy away from discussing his own shortcomings on the radio show, including an issue with pornography and having a hand in a young woman's abortion in the past.

"There was incest in our family, as a kid. There was some abuse, I was a little boy. My little sister- there was some rape," Franklin revealed to Calloway. "There were some ugly images that we got introduced to as kids at about the age of 8. So from about the age of 8 to about 29, I struggled with (pornography.) Not only pornography, but I was very promiscuous."

The seven-time Grammy award winner recently launched his own radio channel on Sirius XM called Kirk Franklin's Praise on channel 64.